disbelief wrote:...I wonder if the same amount of good they do today erases over 1,000 years of killing in the name of their god? I do not think given the history that this was an overstatement but I respect that you do and that this has struck a cord with you...
What you'd originally said was that religion did
no good, not that its good was outweighed by its bad. That religion does no good is, I think, demonstrably false.
disbelief wrote:...For me the only teacher we have is history so I have to look at the history of things...
Good idea. I have a history book right here...
Will Durant wrote:
Excerpted from The Age of Faith by Will Durant, pages 77-79
(Durant here is speaking of the centuries following the fall of Rome.)
The outstanding moral distinction of the Church was her extensive provisions of charity. The pagan emperors had provided state funds for poor families, and pagan magnates had done something for their "clients" and the poor. But never had the world seen such a dispensation of alms as was now organized by the Church. She encouraged bequests to the poor, to be administered by her; some abuses and malversation crept in, but that the Church carried out her obligations abundantly is attested by the jealous emulation of Julian. She helped widows, orphans, the sick or infirm, prisoners, victims of natural catastrophes; and she frequently intervened to protect the lower orders from unusual exploitation or excessive taxation. In many cases priests, on attaining the episcopacy, gave all their property to the poor. Christian women like Fabiola, Paula, and Melania devoted fortunes to charitable work. Following the example of pagan valetudinaria, the Church or her rich laymen founded hospitals on a scale never known before. Basil established a famous hospital, and the first asylum for lepers, at Caesarea in Cappadocia. Xenodocia-- refuges for wayfarers-- rose along pilgrim routes; the Council of Nicea ordered that one should be provided in every city. Widows were enlisted to distribute charity, and found in this work a new significance for their lonely lives. Pagans admired the steadfastness of Christians in caring for the sick in cities stricken with famine or pestilence...
The basic cause of cultural retrogression was not Christianity but barbarism; not religion but war. The human innundation ruined or impoverished cities, monastaries, libraries, schools, and made impossible the life of the scholar or the scientist. Perhaps the destruction would have been worse had not the Church maintained some measure of order in a crumbling civilization. "Amid the agitations of the world," said Ambrose, "the Church remains unmoved; the waves cannot shake her. while around her everything is in horrible chaos, she offers to all the shipwrecked a tranquil port where they will find safety." And often it was so.
The Roman Empire had raised science, prosperity, and power to their ancient peaks. The decay of the Empire in the West, the growth of poverty and the spread of violence, necessitated some new ideal and hope to give men consolation in their suffering and courage in their toil: an age of power gave way to an age of faith. Not till wealth and pride should return in the Renaissance would reason reject faith, and abandon heaven for utopia. But if, thereafter, reason should fail, and science should find no answers, but should multiply knowledge and powers without improving conscience or purpose; if all utopias should collapse in the changeless abuse of the weak by the strong;then men would understand why once their ancestors, in the barbarism of those early Christian centuries, turned from science, knowledge, power, and pride, and took refuge for a thousand years in humble faith, hope, and charity.
I would hesitate to weigh the good of shepherding western civilization through her darkest period against the evil of wars and other forms of religion gone bad. If anyone knows a way to measure and compare the two, please let me know.
But at the same time, it may be a pointless exercise. Suppose we determine that religion on the whole causes mostly suffering and its teachings are morally deficient. Then what? Atheism? We can't turn to atheism just because we don't happen to
like religion; that would be dumb. The question need to hinge on whether or not it is
true. If religion were to turn out to be true, then we would have to accept it whether we agreed with it or not. If religion is not true, then we dismiss it out of hand, and its teachings are irrelevant.